One has to appreciate the messiness that results from science and research during the initial phase of evidence gathering. Just after the letter in NEJM describing the lack of resurgence of microcephaly cases in Brazil in 2016, the U.S. CDC published data from their Zika Pregnancy Registry, showing in a paper published on 4th April in the […]
The Longitude Prize is 10 million GBP prize fund that will be awarded to the person or team that solves one of the greatest issues of our time. It was developed 300 years after the original British Longitude Prize – a challenge set by the British Government in 1714 to measure the longitude accurately. The […]
On a whim, I decided to check out the statistics for the videos on Singapore and Infectious Diseases that we produced as part of the SG50 celebrations in 2015. They were uploaded on YouTube just over a year and half ago – an item off the bucket list! I still think the final video was […]
A repeat announcement of the above contest, with attractive cash prizes that will be given out on World Antibiotic Awareness Week (13-19 November 2017). We now have a webpage hosted by the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, with further details available. Submissions are welcome from 1st June, closing on 30th August for the […]
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was first discovered on 2nd October 1960 by Prof Margaret Patricia Jevons at the Public Health Laboratory in Collindale, London, UK. Methicillin (or celbenin as it was also known as then) became available for prescription in 1959, and the conventional narrative has always been that MRSA arose as a consequence of […]
When I started work as a doctor, dengue was not as common as it is today, and it was alarming to watch the platelet counts crash during the course of the infection. Senior hospitalists would routinely leave standing orders for platelet transfusions, usually once the platelet count of the patients had fallen below some arbitrary […]
The mainstream media reported a new “cluster” of Zika cases in Singapore yesterday. This involved a couple living in Hougang who almost certainly were infected by local mosquitoes. NEA/MOH were notified on 27th March and a helpful map of the cluster is provided on the NEA website. In general, perhaps because the clinical disease […]
My second visit to the compound of the Western Pacific Regional Office (WPRO), WHO. It has been an interesting three days, finding out the status of the national action plans on antimicrobial resistance of the member states of WPRO, and learning from the participants the challenges faced as well as how they might possibly be […]
Today is World TB Day, and this is the 36th edition since it was first inaugurated on 24th March 1982 by WHO and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD). 135 years ago, Robert Koch presented perhaps the most important of his multiple seminal works, “Über Tuberkulose”, to the scientists gathered at the […]
A late middle-aged woman with liver cirrhosis (MELD score 18) from non-alcoholic steatohepatitis presented with fever for 2 days. She was hypotensive at the emergency department, but became normotensive after fluid resuscitation. A CT of the abdomen and pelvis showed left hydronephrosis secondary to a small ureteric stone, with inflammatory changes seen around the kidney. […]
MIPHIDIC 